Francesco Contin

Increasing Product Manager impact through Strategy, Continuous Discovery, & OKRs

I’ve helped leaders, founders, and VCs unlock business impact and value by closing the gap between competing features and actionable strategy. I'm a Principal Design Enablement Manager at KeyBank, Substack author, and Product/Strategy coach who's spent 15+ years turning enterprise chaos into clarity. 

If your teams are shipping features but not moving metrics that matter, Product Strategy Decoded is for you.

As Principal Design Enablement Manager, Design Excellence & Operations (DExOps) – Key Experience Design (KeyXD) Team at KeyBank, we centralize and support KeyBank's world-class design function. 

My core competencies include Strategy, Product Management, Objectives and Key Results (OKRs), Continuous Discovery, solution development and delivery, Agile leadership, solution innovation, PMO leadership, SDLC management, information architecture, iOS and Android application development, delivery management, program and project management, budget and resource management, user experience enhancement, client engagement leadership, client relationship management, and technology team leadership. 

I am passionate about building great products that leverage Lean and UX-driven, Design Thinking-centered approaches to deliver measurable client-focused business outcomes. I am also an author and public speaker, sharing my insights and best practices on Product, Strategy, OKRs, and Agile delivery.

All views expressed are my own.

Michael Goitein

The reason it takes so long to build software with large teams isn't what you think...

It's called "High WIP" (Work in Progress), and it's destroying your teams' ability to get stuff done.

You've all seen it:
• 100 projects started. 
• 0 finished
• 37 stuck at 97%
• How could it be that everyone's so “busy," yet nothing's getting done?

The downstream results aren't good, as team morale tanks over time.

But the worst thing? These teams' ability to have any material impact on meaningful business results becomes non-existent.

But the truth too many leaders miss is that high WIP isn't the problem – it's a SYMPTOM.

The real reasons are hiding below the surface:
1. The inability to make strategic choices – saying "yes" and trying to do it all. 
2. The outdated "vendor" mindset, with "The Business" throwing requirements over the wall to "IT." (It's time to wake up and collaborate earlier instead of dictating. Last I checked, it's 2026...)
3. We're managing software development like a factory assembly line (velocity?), when it's actually a learning journey toward changing customer behavior
4. Leadership refusing to understand and accept true team capacity, instead of always pushing for more. ("Hoping" will never make it true)
5. The unending search for the next shiny object: (“NOW we're all doing agentic AI on our roadmaps! ...until the next hot thing comes along.) 

We have to face that we've become addicted to starting things, but hate doing the hard work of finishing them.

The only way to break free? Start by accepting that less = more.

Fewer things done well will be worth far more than trying and failing to do many more things badly.

Your teams don't need more to do. 

You owe it to them to make clear, thoughtful strategic choices and prioritize the fewer, truly essential moves you need to make for your customers and your business.

Agree? Share your thoughts below 👇

I help product teams turn confusion into actionable strategic choices | Enterprise Product, Strategy & Discovery Coach | KeyBank | Author

Typical story: PM tries to vibe-code a prototype. Goes down the rabbit hole trying to connect databases & refactor spaghetti code.

Meanwhile, the assumption they were trying to prove/disprove goes untested.

While there are many "vibe-coding" platforms out there, what sets Magic Patterns apart is founders Alexander Danilowicz and Teddy Ni's laser-focus on front-end only, faithfully capturing and extending a company's existing design system so quick prototypes don't distract with blatantly wrong UI.

Forget about massive documentation. Magic Patterns revolutionizes the  software development lifecycle by shifting that part of the process "left."

"We're data-driven" may be the most dangerous phrase in product.

Roger Martin saw how some of the biggest breakthrough innovations didn’t come from data-obsessed companies. Instead, products like the iPhone and the Aeron chair came to life because there was no data, and moving forward required a leap of imagination.

Data can't tell you what's possible. It can only tell you what happened in the past.

I once worked with a team that watched their analytics dashboards like day traders. One tiny dip triggered all-hands, red-alert panic. They analyzed furiously.
What didn't they do? Speak to a single customer.

What’s one critical opportunity you’re ignoring because you don’t have the data?

I'm looking for product trios to join me for a 30-minute session where I'll walk you through a strategy framework from "Playing to Win for Product Teams" to help balance data with strategic imagination. Drop "DATA" below if this hits home.

Strategy isn't magic. It's a learnable skill.

This will inflame the strategy gatekeepers who've spent years reading dusty volumes and want you to believe it's some rare talent, reserved for the special few.

That you're either born with it or you're not.

That only they possess the "secrets."

But strategy is way simpler than they want you to think:
Strategy: A set of choices to influence customer behavior.
Great strategy: Intentionally pairing choices that reinforce each other, consistently.
Success: The result of focused action.
Anyone can learn this. 

And that's exactly what "Playing to Win for Product Teams" is designed to teach.

Comment "skill" in the comments if you're tired of strategy being treated like some secret club.

Notion founder Ivan Zhao calls it "sugaring the broccoli":
Hide revolutionary capabilities inside familiar experiences.

Too much software still tries to impress you with all its cool features out of the box. Feature tours. Onboarding flows. Tutorials explaining everything the product can do.

Zhao made a far different choice, influenced by Apple’s approach to focus and simplicity.
Open Notion for the first time, and you see a simple, familiar note-taking interface. 
You can start taking notes and get value within 30 seconds.
But Notion gradually reveals the powerful, next-gen software development platform hidden underneath as you go. Notes become pages. Pages become databases. Databases become custom apps.
By the time you realize you're building your own software, you're already hooked.
This is a clear "How to Win" choice. Instead of competing on features, Notion competes on the gentlest possible learning curve toward the most powerful outcome.
What's your product's version of “sugaring the broccoli”?

There are two types of Tech Leads. Only one helps your product deliver business results over the long-term.

I worked with a super-capable tech lead who ended every discovery conversation the same way: "Whatever the product manager and stakeholders want, I'll build it."

Seemed great. Collaborative. Easygoing.

Until the product collapsed under the weight of its own tech debt.

Being "nice" and "serving The Business" masked a lack of strategic leadership that eventually cost us everything.

Another tech lead I worked with asked a totally different question in discovery:
"Can you walk me through the user journey, how this delivers against our strategy, and the customer & business metrics we’re trying to drive?”

One focused only on the next feature release.

The other knew everything we discovered and delivered had to create sustained user AND business impact.

Any tech lead can learn client-centricity and strategic thinking. "Playing to Win for Product Teams" is designed to help everyone on the product team be more strategic.

I'm offering a limited number of product trios a free 30-minute session to walk through a simple, powerful strategy framework. Drop "tech" in the comments or DM me if this hits home.

Is your product strategy fundamentally broken? Find out with the Toggle Method, a 10-second diagnostic. It can't tell you everything about your strategy, but it will tell you if something fundamental is broken.

Every product strategy has two core choices:
 • Where to Play: Which customers do you serve, to address which problems, in which contexts?
 • How to Win: What's your differentiated approach to serving them?

Take your Where to Play and your How to Win, and ask:

Does this How to Win ONLY work for this Where to Play?

Toggle your Where to Play to a different customer segment. A competitor's customers. A related market. Does your How to Win still make sense for them?

If your How to Win would be wrong or undesirable for those other customers, you have a matched set. Your choices reinforce each other.

If your How to Win would work just as well for them, something is broken. Either you haven't made real choices, or your choices don't fit together well enough.

But the Toggle Test can only surface a symptom. 

You’ll need a separate test to diagnose which problem you actually have.

Subscribe to “Product Strategy Decoded” where I share the full framework, together with prompts to help test your strategic thinking.

Design isn't about making things look "cool" or "intuitive." It's about working with product and tech to deliver business results.

But when you ask "who’s this for?", all you get are vague answers like "users" or "prospects."

So you look for design inspiration elsewhere and create brand-safe, "attractive" choices. Generic layouts. Because nobody upstream made choices.

My teams’ greatest breakthroughs have happened when design sits down with product and tech and walks through an experience with the right people to better understand their needs in that moment.

Great design uses simplicity and constraints to solve for unmet customer needs. 
But it depends on understanding who you're designing for, and who you can exclude.

As a designer, your best work depends on getting the strategic clarity you need.

When's the last time vague direction held back the level of design work you knew you could deliver for your team?

I'm looking for 3 product trios to join me for a 30-minute session where I’ll walk you through a specific strategy framework from my upcoming book, 'Playing to Win for Product Teams' to help you get the clarity you need. 

Drop a comment and connect if you're dealing with this now.

Reed Hastings tried to sell Netflix to Blockbuster for $50 million. The Blockbuster team laughed him out of the building.
But Hastings understood something Blockbuster's mission statement never revealed: rewind fees were a huge revenue driver. Customers hated them. And Blockbuster couldn't give them up.
Hastings made that gap the centerpiece of Netflix's strategy.
Today, Netflix is worth over $300 billion. Blockbuster filed for bankruptcy in 2010.
Want to find your competitor's blind spot? 
Forget their mission statement. Just ask three questions:
1. Where are they spending money? Engineering headcount, marketing channels, partnerships.
2. What are they saying no to? Features they don't build, customers they ignore, markets they avoid.
3. What can they not change? Business model, brand positioning, technical architecture.
The answers reveal their actual strategy and where they're vulnerable.
Try this on your biggest competitor this week. Where does what they do differ from what they say?

Your razor-sharp, 42-slide roadmap deck took eight straight days to build, working nights & weekends. 

2025 recap, every 2026 Q1 feature justified with data, ICE scores, tied to OKRs, and mapped to a customer complaint.

Leadership asked a minor detail question, said "thanks," and moved on. No real digging. No debate. No insights, direction, or warning about potential upcoming moves across the org.

The problem? When you overwhelm leadership with features, outputs, and data, you miss the opportunity to tell a simple, clear business impact story.

What opportunities are we prioritizing? Who are we serving and not serving this quarter? What's an emerging advantage to exploit? What are we betting will be true about the market? And how do we anticipate these choices to drive customer and business results?

Next time, try one slide on the customer opportunity, one on who you’re serving and how, one on the numbers that matter to tell that story, and present 3-5 choice possibilities for the coming quarter. 

See how the conversation shifts.

Four reasons for the Strategy Gap. Which one hits you hardest right now?

1. Strategy treated as executive mystery — reserved for the "ivory tower"
2. Strategy disconnected from execution — "it's on the roadmap" becomes the only answer
3. Strategy is rarely taught — design schools teach visual thinking, engineering schools teach systems architecture, but almost no one teaches product strategy
4. The opposite is taught — business schools emphasize strategic planning (data-driven, analytical, internal-facing) over strategy (creative, customer-centric)

The thing is, your product team is already being strategic.

You choose to do some things and not others. Many of those choices are made for you.

But even when you're told what to build, you can deliver better against customer, company, and business goals when you make sharper choices within your constraints

That's what "Playing to Win for Product Teams" is designed to teach.

Drop your number (1-4) in the comments. I'd love to hear which one resonates most.

81% of PMs know strategy is core to their role.
Only 25% work at companies with clear strategic direction.

Welcome to The Strategy Gap.

You keep dancing around the problem: 
 – Maybe more planning will help (it won't)
 – Maybe OKRs will help (they won't)
 – Maybe your favorite framework will help…

But you already have a strategy.
It's what you're doing right now.

I've designed "Playing to Win for Product Teams" to give you the tools to understand what's really happening and create the right strategy for your context.

Drop "strategy" in the comments or DM me for early access.

Product stuck? Maybe it’s time to listen to what the market is trying to tell you.

But the most successful product pivots never come from brilliant strategy sessions.

They start when someone notices an unexpected pattern in user behavior:
 • Discord: "Why are 78% of our users non-gamers?"
 • Loom: "Why is everyone ignoring our awesome dev tool integrations and just sending quick videos?"
 • dbt Labs: "Why is our internal tool gaining 1000+ users while our consulting stagnates?"

These questions led to billion-dollar pivots only when these companies let go of their locked-in “Mission” and “Vision,” and created a new set of choices aligned to what their users were actually doing.

Want to find the key for your product?

I've designed "Playing to Win for Product Teams" to give your entire team a set of First Principles, mental models, and frameworks. Not to create the “one, perfect” strategy, but to make strategic thinking across your product team a continuous habit.

Drop "strategy" in the comments or DM me for early access.

There's no better way for product managers to talk about their work than through "Money Stories."
And no one can tell a clearer and more compelling money story than Rich Mironov

40-year B2B product mgmt veteran with 3 exits, 15 interim CPO roles, 6 VC-backed start-ups. Wrote “Money Stories” and “The Art of Product Management.” Coach/mentor for scores of product leaders. Product Camp founder.

Excited to announce my new book, "Money Stories: Communicating the Value of Product Work"

It pulls together long-time thoughts about talking with executives in the Language of Money, framing estimates of financial value for products and features, earning our keep, and avoiding product/process discussions with folks who don't care.

Tagline: DON’T BRING A BACKLOG TO A GUNFIGHT!

https://lnkd.in/eVYZh8vv 

#productstrategy #organizations #leadership #executives #economics

I'll be adding this crucial update to my Gong strategy breakdown:
https://lnkd.in/ek8_RGMM

The US, China, Canada, and Mexico are collaborating—TARIFF-FREE—with Gong. 

Well, kind of. 😏

When we first rolled out translation in Gong, we thought, “Cool feature, nice to have.” 

Turns out, it’s a total game changer for global teams.

	•	No more language barriers. Managers can review and coach deals without speaking a word of the customer’s language.

	•	Teams can learn best practices from each other—across countries, across languages, across time zones.

	•	Hiring just got way more flexible. No need to limit yourself to one language—build the best team, period.

From now on, nothing’s Greek to you. 😉 Enjoy!

Product whisperer. Author of “AI for Product Managers” and “Deliver Great Products that Customers Love”. Product innovation training, coaching, and facilitation.

To all Product Leaders in my network: If you want to help your PMs foster AI competence - whether you build a traditional product or an AI-enhanced one - invite your team to join my "AI for Product Managers" course. 

It's a 2-week intensive bootcamp where PMs learn how to leverage AI tools to accelerate their PM workflow - from discovery to solution validation.
It's designed to be hands-on so that PMs learn first, and then bring home a repeatable workflow on how to use AI in their PDLC.

The benefit? Develop AI competency in your team, accelerate product development, and validate product ideas faster.
More info here:
https://lnkd.in/evu3sMrX
(reach out to me with questions)

Open article: AI for Product Managers by Valerio Zanini on Maven by maven.com

AI for Product Managers by Valerio Zanini on Maven

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